Stealing the Kingdom: The Sacking of Wau Shilluk

The attack began with mortar fire. One moment, Nyalot Adiang Mod was standing in line in the South Sudanese fishing village of Wau Shilluk, waiting with her children for a sorghum ration.

The next, she was running, one child on her back, another close to her chest, just one person in a human wave of thousands fleeing down the west bank of the White Nile river. The shelling followed.

Those who couldn't run - the elderly, the ill - were left behind. Homes were burned, the hospital looted.

It was late January 2017, just over three years since South Sudan had descended into civil war after President Salva Kiir accused his deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup. By then, 1.4 million people had been made refugees by the conflict. Some 1.84 million more were internally displaced. By April that year, another 50,000 people from Shilluk villages all along the west bank of the White Nile would have fled the government's advance.

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